IRS and Seagate?

The Internal Revenue Service issued an alert on March 1st, 2016, to payroll and human resources professionals to be aware of an emerging phishing email scheme that purports to be from company executives and requests personal information on employees.

The following are some of the details contained in the e-mails:

• Kindly send me the individual 2015 W-2 (PDF) and earnings summary of all W-2 of our company staff for a quick review
• Can you send me the updated list of employees with full details (Name, Social Security Number, Date of Birth, Home Address, Salary).
• I want you to send me the list of W-2 copy of employees wage and tax statement for 2015, I need them in PDF file type, you can send it as an attachment. Kindly prepare the lists and email them to me asap.

More information is on the IRS website.

Today on Brian Krebs’ website, Seagate Technologies has confessed that they fell for this scam… on March 1st, 2016. In Brian’s article he wrote:

“On March 1, Seagate Technology learned that the 2015 W-2 tax form information for current and former U.S.-based employees was sent to an unauthorized third party in response to the phishing email scam, the information was sent by an employee who believed the phishing email was a legitimate internal company request.”

It’s highly recommended that HR and Finance get notified of this specific phishing attack. Please let them know! Share this article with them.